


Coffee & Cuddling

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9039311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: Liara and Shepard take some time off together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> mass effect secret santa gift for biotic-ii on tumblr!!

Liara groaned as she woke, putting an arm over her eyes in a futile attempt to keep the light from the bedside lamp from searing her retinas. “Shepard,” she mumbled, “what time is it?”

There was no response.

She waited for a moment. Maybe Shepard was busy, or still sleeping. But when she didn’t hear the telltale little rumble of Shepard’s snoring, she pried her arm off her face, cracked open an eye, and sighed. "Left the room without turning the lights off, I see…”

She dragged herself into an upright position, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as she glanced around. Sure enough, Shepard was nowhere to be seen, though the too-bright glow of her terminal suggested she’d be back shortly.

Seeing no point in trying to get back to sleep, she sighed and tossed the blankets aside, then slowly got to her feet. She wobbled a little, but recovered, and wandered over to the dresser to find something to wear.

Shepard reappeared as she was pulling her pants on, carrying a datapad in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. “Oh, you’re up!” she said, face scrunching up in her trademark Shepard Smile™. “Did I wake you?”

“The lamp did.” Liara smiled despite the exhaustion in her voice. Shepard’s smile was contagious like that. “You left it on.”

Shepard traipsed over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sorry about that.” The glint in her eyes did appear genuinely apologetic as she moved to sit at her desk, taking a drink from her mug. “Mm. Remind me to thank the Council later for the coffee machine.”

Liara raised a brow. “What?”

She swallowed down another gulp, then explained, “Council sent me- well, the _Normandy,_ but it was _because_ of me- a new coffeemaker, ’cause the standard-issue Alliance military one is horrible. Apparently they got tired of me complaining about it in all my mission reports.” She snickered to herself, then gestured to her terminal. “Here, see?”

Curious, Liara drifted over and read the open message on the screen. Sure enough, the Council had informed Shepard they’d paid for a new coffeemaker, and it had been installed while Shepard was busy on the Citadel during their last visit. “Councilor Valern must have written this,” she mused.

Shepard furrowed her brow. “How’d you figure?”

Liara pointed to a word that hadn’t been translated out of its original script. “That’s a common salarian curse word. Tazzik uses it no fewer than three times per mission report.”

“Huh.” Shepard took another drink of coffee. “Guess that explains why it’s in the sentence ‘Now quit your bitching, or I know fifty-seven different ways to make it explode.’” She shrugged and added, “I figured it had to be either him or Sparatus.”

Liara smiled. “True, but Sparatus dislikes explosions. They hurt his auditory matrix.”

“Fair enough.” Shepard closed out of the window, then leaned back in her chair. “Sorry again for waking you. I was going to just let you sleep in today. I mean, you’ve been working yourself to the bone, and all, I thought you could use the rest.”

Liara blinked, then hummed. “Thank you, but I’m fine, really.”

Shepard gave her the tiniest of frowns over the rim of her mug. “I’m not so sure. You _did_ kinda collapse face-first into bed the last few nights.”

Liara hesitated, sitting down at the edge of Shepard’s bed. She was right, of course- between the general stress of the war and her work as Shadow Broker, there simply wasn’t time to sit down and rest.

But _still._

“I’m okay, Shepard, I promise. Besides, you’re hardly the picture of relaxation, yourself.”

Shepard pursed her lips, eyebrows knitting together in that adorable way they did when she was thinking. After a moment, she sighed. “Okay, here. Let’s compromise. We both take a load off today. Joker says we have another day or two before we get back to the Citadel anyway, we have time before we have to get out and about. We’ll hang out, you do whatever you can do from up here, and maybe we can watch a vid or something. Sound good?”

Liara put a hand to her chin, considering. “I suppose that could work. I’ll need to go down to my office first, of course.”

“Right, right, of course.” Shepard waved a hand. “I gotta go make the rounds and check on everybody, anyway. So, we both go do what we do in the mornings, then rendezvous back up here for the day?”

She nodded, and Shepard beamed. “Great! Then, uh, I’ll see you in a bit?”

* * *

Curled up under the covers with Shepard, watching a vid they’d taken ten minutes to agree on, Liara decided she could stand to take an easy day more often.

Shepard’s bed was piled with as many blankets as they could stand without overheating, and the combination of the weight and warmth of the blankets, Shepard’s arm wrapped comfortably around her waist, and the muffled thudding of Shepard’s heart under Liara’s temple was downright cozy. EDI had agreed to turn away anyone who wanted to talk to them, save the direst of emergencies, so they wouldn’t be needing to leave the bed any time soon. The vid was something Shepard _insisted_ was a human classic but looked more like a B-lister to Liara, a simple romance with no gunfire, explosions, or exploding gunfire to speak of, and the two leads’ conversations ran together into a gentle murmur in the background.

Yes, she thought, this was certainly something they’d need to revisit.

She shifted to nuzzle the base of Shepard’s neck, and she jolted in response. “Cold nose, cold nose,” Shepard yelped, squirming like a varren pup.

Liara considered this for the briefest of moments, then pressed her nose to Shepard’s neck again, now smiling at the squeal this dragged out of her. “Ahhh, you’re doing this on purpose!” she complained, giving Liara a half-hearted push.

“Possibly,” Liara teased, wrapping an arm around Shepard’s midsection and snuggling in close. “You _do_ have rather amusing reactions.”

“I’m being harassed on my own ship,” Shepard groaned, but the smile on her face betrayed her as she turned onto her side and hugged Liara tight. “First Joker and Garrus conspire against me, and now I’m being attacked by an ice cube masquerading as a nose. Betrayal!”

Liara laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think moving all the furniture that isn’t bolted down two inches to the left counts as conspiring against you, Shepard.”

“It’s a conspiracy against all the toes I’ve been stubbing, at least. D’you think if I told Hackett or the Council you’re all faithless mutineers, they’d buy it?”

“More like they’d tell you they’re going to start charging you for every time you call.”

Shepard grinned, then touched their foreheads together. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Liara smiled and reached up with one hand to twine her fingers with Shepard’s. “Any time, Shepard.”


End file.
